Fanuc Roboguide

Roboguide is a robot system animation tool specifically developed for the production and maintenance of robot systems. It can be used both in offices and on the factory floor.

As the Australian market continues to suffer from skilled labour shortages and the focus on OH&S grows, customers are coming to John Hart to discuss new and more productive Fanuc robot solutions.

A valuable tool that greatly assists the development and demonstration of these solutions is the Fanuc 3D robot simulation package Roboguide. Roboguide is a cost effective software package that enables our engineers to design, prove and program robot systems in real time, either concurrently in a new product design or for making modifications to existing equipment or programs.

Roboguide provides John Hart engineers with the tools needed to develop and test a complete robotic application in a 3D environment without the time and costs associated with developing a prototype work cell.

For customers who are considering automation, Roboguide can quickly and easily provide reliable and accurate information about a given application. This helps in reducing the amount of time taken to design and test a solution, and speeds up the assessment of a project’s viability.

Roboguide can import unique CAD models of process parts and create a virtual work cell which includes machinery, part transfer devices and factory obstacles. Roboguide will then teach robot paths to simulate the operation and performance of the robotic application taking into account the physical obstacles.

Also simulated in Roboguide’s 3D environment is reach verification, collision detection, accurate cycle time estimates and other visual system operations. These functions can be used to produce a simulation video to help evaluate and approve a project.

Whether it is to assist design, simulate, install or commission a robotic system, JHA&R apply these technologies to a wide range of applications in areas such as material handling, machine tending, picking, packing, palletising and material removal.

Easy to create the environment for devices and machines. Special skills are not required.

Program creation using animation

Extreme reduction of start-up time and maintenance time by off-line check in a shop floor

Standard Package which supports various robot application

Robot application specific package with high operability.

Features

Cell Calibration And User Frame

Roboguide automatically creates reference programs in order to calibrate the simulation to the real robot system. Three taught robot positions allow adjusting the entire process.

Collision Detection

Collision detection feature to get a visual warning in case of collisions during the robot simulation

Easy Programming Of Standard

Application software packages can be selected and configured with ROBOGUIDE. This reduces system cost and drastic accelerates system start up.

Easy To Use Powerful Offline Programming Software

Roboguide allows powerful programming with an intuitive and easy-to-use interface

Cell Layout and Cycle Time can be tested Offline

Virtual controller technology for true cycle times and reach

All robot models can be simulated. ArcTool, SpotTool and HandlingTool application software can be selected and configured.

Easy to use with Virtual Teach Pendant (Same menus & displays as the real robot)

Offline Programming speeds system integration and reduces system cost

Cycle time profiler, collision detection & work envelop display

Motion trace displayed as node map; AVI video file output

Import of work pieces, tools, fixtures and obstacles in IGES format

Graphical And Video Display Of Robot Programs

Motion trace displayed during testing

AVI video file output possible

Graphical output of results for quick documentation and decision making

Import Of CAD Data In IGES Format

Imported formats help build system layouts and evaluate system operation quickly and comprehensively.

Profiler Function

The teach pendant program profiler analyses the timing of each program line in order to achieve best cycle times.

Virtual Teach Pendant

Easy to use with same menus & displays as the real robotNo special training necessary

PC Developer

Developer’s Kit is a powerful tool that enables high performance communication of information and instructions between a PC and FANUC System R-30iA and R-30iA Mate Controllers. The kit is both a development and run-time environment that gets the MS Windows™ application running quickly. Visual Basic programming expertise is required to develop application packages over PC Developers Kit.

Features

Robot Server

Robot Manager

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) for file access

Visual Basic Integrated

Development Environment

Visual Basic Programming

Online documentation

Source files for example programs that use all Robot Server features

Robot Server

The heart of the PC Developer’s Kit is the Robot Server. It knows how to access the information needed from the R-30iA and R-30iA Mate Controllers and makes the controller follow the instructions.The Robot Server works with Visual Basic 6.0 code through an object oriented interface. When using an object’s property, method or event, the object handles the details of getting that action accomplished on the robotin the most efficient way. Programming with objects is fundamental to Visual Basic. Visual Basic’s rapid prototyping and powerful development environment and Robot Server objects virtually ensure the success of the application.

Here is a partial list of the actions the application can do through the Robot Server:

Read/write variables – this includes user defined structures, arrays and path nodes along with the “simple” system and KAREL variables.

Robot Manager

Read/write numeric registers – these are the variables of TPP programs.

Check program status – determine which program is running, aborted or paused.

Load/save programs – users can load a program to controller memory and save it to the PC.

Read/write positions – positions can be converted and presented in joint, cartesian or matrix representations. This includes KAREL positions, TPP positions, position registers, the current robot position, user frame, tool frame, jog frame and positions in system variables.

Monitor alarms – the entire alarm log is made available and updated as new alarms occur.

Coordinate with the robot program – TPP and KAREL programs can generate events to which the Visual Basic code responds.

Visual Basic programming is needed to access robot information.See the following example application to get an idea of what it takes to access robot information at the PC. The above example program presents an updated display of the most recent alarm on any robot on the network. Just enter the robot’s network name in the box below and press connect. It has full error handling and many of the lines were automatically generated.